Barlow grad Han has drive to succeed on ice

Updated 11:56 pm, Tuesday, February 18, 2014

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - DECEMBER 05: Brooklee Han competes during the Australian Figure Skating Championships on December 5, 2013 in Melbourne, Australia.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - DECEMBER 05: Brooklee Han competes during the Australian Figure Skating Championships on December 5, 2013 in Melbourne, Australia.

Photo: Michael Dodge, Getty Images

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MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - DECEMBER 05: Brooklee Han listens to her coach during the Australian Figure Skating Championships on December 5, 2013 in Melbourne, Australia.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - DECEMBER 05: Brooklee Han listens to her coach during the Australian Figure Skating Championships on December 5, 2013 in Melbourne, Australia.

Photo: Michael Dodge, Getty Images

Image 3 of 3

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - DECEMBER 05: Brooklee Han competes during the Australian Figure Skating Championships on December 5, 2013 in Melbourne, Australia.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - DECEMBER 05: Brooklee Han competes during the Australian Figure Skating Championships on December 5, 2013 in Melbourne, Australia.

Photo: Michael Dodge, Getty Images

Barlow grad Han has drive to succeed on ice

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She put on the figure skates for the first time when she was 5 years old, slowly getting used to the spins and the jumps and the footwork that comes with being a ballerina on ice.

Brooklee Han skated for that first time at the Brewster (N.Y.) Ice Arena, but as she grew older and trained more and more, there were plenty of stops at the Newington Arena. For seven years, she skated and trained and became a solid figure skater. When her mother convinced her to go to a skating camp in Simsbury, that's when everything changed.

It was 2007 and Han was 12, at the crossroads in her skating career. She could be fine with where she was or take a quantum leap forward. Han opted for the latter.

"It kind of was a chance meeting because (Vaypan) hadn't settled into a rink to be a full-time coach in the states yet," said Jennifer Wester, director of the Learn to Skate School at the Newington Arena and the 2007 Nebelhorn Trophy ice dancing champion with her husband, Daniil Barantsev. "He was doing an international skating camp there and she met him. And apparently when she did, she said to her mom, `This is my coach. He can take me where I want to go.'"

Just like that, Han -- who graduated in 2013 from Joel Barlow High in Redding -- went from landing single jumps to landing triples. Just like that, Han captured the 2009 New England Regional championships. In a previous interview, Han said that when she met Vaypan, "everything clicked." Since that New England Regional title, Han has been competing internationally.

And tonight, with Vaypan by her side and her parents, Anthony and Pinky, in the stands, Han will skate for Australia in the women's short program in the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, with her free skate coming on Thursday. Her father is Australian, and Brooklee qualified by virtue of her fifth-place finish in the 2013 Nebelhorn Trophy competition, which was the final qualifying event for countries that had yet to place a skater into the Olympics.

"Going into Nebelhorn, my ultimate goal was securing the Olympic quota spot for Australia," Han, 18, told the website icenetwork.com in an interview just before the Olympics. "I am very pleased and proud to have reached this goal and to have achieved it with two solid performances."

In addition to that fifth-place finish at Nebelhorn, Han took the gold in the Volvo Open Cup in Riga, Latvia, and placed 14th in the Four Continents competition in Osaka, Japan.

"Making this (Australian) team wasn't an easy task at all because she has to compete against the best in the world and get international qualifications," said Wester, who has known Han since 2010. "It's been amazing to see her do that, head down, plow through it. If it was doable, she was going to do it.

"Her battle is much harder than, say, Gracie Gold, who's got all of American figure skating behind her. When you're competing for Australia, you don't have the benefit of the doubt. She's doing all the leg work."

But that driving force has been there for Brooklee her entire skating career.

Driven to excellence

"This skating excellence is a sign of her internal commitment that she has and you can see that in all aspects of her life," said Thomas McMorran, principal at Joel Barlow. "She was a straight `A' student and is really devoted to the concept of wellness. She's developed and taught a course to our middle-schoolers on balanced living. And what's really neat about her is there's absolutely nothing of the prima donna in Brooklee. She's a considerate, thoughtful kid. She's really mindful of her status but never once played off it. When she was at Barlow these last couple of years, that was her opportunity to just be herself."

In preparation for Sochi, Brooklee trained with Vaypan in New Jersey, a two-hour drive to and from the rink. At Barlow, Han adjusted her classes so she could have them all in the first five periods of the day, allowing her to leave at 12:30 and drive with her mother to train before driving back home.

"She would climb into the backseat and immediately start doing her homework," McMorran said. "She excelled in all of her classes, but she also had a real passion for scientific research, particularly with physiology and the body. She did independent study with the physical education program. As a student, it was her place to be normal and ordinary.

"She's a person who can sustain her commitment to achieving a goal. That's true in her as an athlete or a scholar or a member of the community. We're all impressed with her drive to get onto the ice in Sochi."

"I'm not surprised that she's made it this far. Going to the Olympics ... that's like, `Wow!' but I knew she was going to make it because she works so hard," said Rizzio, 20, who has known Han for the last five-plus years and works and skates at the Newington Arena.

"She's really like a rock. She knows how to handle herself and that makes her a really good competitor. Brooklee's very consistent. She knows the techniques. She has a good coach and she works really hard. She knows what she's doing out there."

When you think of Australia and the Olympics, it's likely that more summer events than winter come to mind, and if winter events do pop into one's head, figure skating would likely not be one of them. A brief taste of history: The first ice rink in Australia was built in 1904 in Han's father's hometown of Adelaide. And in 1932, Australia joined the International Skating Union.

But it's been a tough road. Han was the only Australian eligible to compete in the 2013 World Championships, and if she hadn't qualified at Nebelhorn, there would have been no Olympics.

"It has to be hard because certainly, there's a lot of obstacles," Wester said. "Especially when you're training in the states and representing Australia. You get a lot of people rolling their eyes. There's a lot of backlash. But she just seems like she's been able to put it aside and continue training as if nothing else was going on.

"She didn't let people put her down, which is really impressive to do because in skating, people change around. They change countries and try to get a leg up or whatnot. But in her case, it wasn't about taking an easy path, it was making it about her accomplishments rather than politics."

Rising star

Just 18, Han has come a long way in a relatively short time. In 2012-13, she placed 21st in the World Championships, 12th in the Four Continents and 16th in the World Juniors -- a major improvement from her 30th-place finish at the Juniors a year earlier.

"She was always good but she just kept improving and improving herself in competitions," Rizzio said. "And this season, she really did well internationally."

Han was in 10th place after the short program (48.74) at Nebelhorn, skating to "Prayer for Taylor" by Michael Smith and "Titanic Symphony" by Richard Clayderman. But she scored a solid 98.42 in the free skate to the music of "Secret" by Jay Chou, finishing fifth and moving up to fifth place.

"I really love both my programs this season and I truly enjoy performing them in front of an audience," Han told icenetwork,com. "Both programs are story-based, which makes it easier for me to interpret and express the music."

"She has good consistency on the jumps," Wester said. "There are girls definitely pushing the technical jump envelope and that's going to be where she's going to be focused to get her more up in the standings. She skates amazing, clean programs."

And it will take two amazing, clean programs to even have a chance at contending in Sochi. Still, for Han just to get to the Olympics has to be a victory in itself.

"I really want to just enjoy the whole Olympic experience, from walking in the opening ceremony to competing on Olympic ice," Han said to icenetwork.com. "I hope to skate like I do in practice and put out two solid programs."

And you can bet all her friends will be watching.

"We're dedicating the library to watching the figure skating," McMorran said. "We'll have the competition projected on the large screens and we'll have our hallway monitors tuned into that. We have a poster of her in our main entrance that says `Brooklee Han ... the pride of Barlow.' She's got quite a fan base among the students and the staff.

"We had an assembly to send her off about two weeks ago and I think we had more than 500 kids there to celebrate her participation in the Olympics. There's a lot of buzz, kids are wearing Brooklee pins and little Australian flags to show their support for her. Unless you knew her the way we do, you just can't believe that someone who's competing at that level, top 20 in the world, is in no way an ice princess. She's just this genuine, wonderful human being who happens to be really passionate about everything she does. She's a fierce competitor."

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"I love the girl," Wester added. "I'm hoping that she has just an amazing time at the Olympics."